


Into Shape

by grainjew



Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Ghost King Danny Fenton, Introspective Nonsense, The Far Frozen, fisher king nonsense, have i mentioned yet how much i love frostbite, i love loyalty content and i love fisher king stuff. and frostbite, im having a great time here basically, or something, pariah dark? an absolute jerk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-10
Updated: 2019-11-10
Packaged: 2021-01-27 06:42:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21387796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grainjew/pseuds/grainjew
Summary: Frostbite was an old ghost. Not as old as some — he was no Master of a domain or one-eyed Observant — but he was one of the eldest of his people, and he was old enough to remember Pariah Dark's reign with clarity, and with terror.Frostbite: a retrospective
Comments: 55
Kudos: 504





	Into Shape

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fallingwish](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fallingwish/gifts).

> i had like ten other things i wanted to write but then i thought for like five seconds too long about how much i love frostbite and ended up spending a week on this instead
> 
> also, it/its clockwork

Frostbite was an old ghost. Not as old as some — he was no Master of a domain or one-eyed Observant — but he was one of the eldest of his people, and he was old enough to remember Pariah Dark's reign with clarity, and with terror.

The newer ghosts… well, they feared the Ghost King's name, of course. But in a distant way, a caution born from whispers and stories. They didn't remember the way each step he took burned gashes into lairs, the way his presence hung heavy in every particle of ectoplasm until existing felt like drowning, the way he used the king's right to Command to strip away choice at a whim. To enter his presence was to be bound to his will, and to exist in the Infinite Realms was to enter his presence.

But Frostbite had never completely accepted Pariah Dark's rule, not when the Far Frozen burned or he was forced to bow or he choked on smoke and steam and tears and burnt flesh and echoed grief. Not when he picked up the ruins of his people, afterwards, and tried to pretend for them that things would be okay.

And then one day, in the aftermath, time paused for him, and the Master of Time, furtive and unbefittingly worn, entrusted him with guardianship of a treasure.

_ He will not suspect a defeated enemy, _ the Master of Time had said, shifting between forms to a slow rhythm Frostbite couldn’t hear. _ I remain beyond his power, but my employers do not. Keep it safe, keep it hidden. Use it judiciously: you have good judgement. _

Frostbite had taken the Infi-map in his hands, then; one hand flesh and the other new, supple ice. He tried to ignore the praise — it really wasn't every day a ghost got a compliment from a being as lofty and reclusive as the Master of Time, and he was trying really hard to fight a blush — but there were more important things to focus on. 

His people were coming apart in the Ghost King’s wake, melting, despairing, fading, remembering dying. The Master of Time was entrusting him, unimportant defeated humiliated him, with a treasure so powerful he could barely grasp its potential. And _ oh, _ was Frostbite afraid. He was so afraid. He was so terrified of so many things, of the treasure of the Ghost King of the Master of Time of fire.

But. 

All the stories said the Master of Time knew everything, past and present and future. It wouldn’t be coming to Frostbite if the action meant disaster. Frostbite steadied his stance, and tried not to think about how the Master of Time’s definition of disaster might differ from his own. The Master of Time knew what it was doing. He had to trust that, and do his part.

_ I accept this charge, _ Frostbite said finally. He bowed formally to the Master of Time over the Infi-map, as was due to it, in acceptance. The Master of Time's eyes crinkled with some kind of amusement. _ You can count on me. _

_ Thank you, _ the Master of Time said. There was deep gravity in its words. It floated upwards, and placed a child’s hand on Frostbite’s forehead. A blessing. _ Your choice has ensured a timeline in which the possibility of freedom remains. _

Frostbite opened his mouth to speak, unthinking of what would come out, but then — _ Time in! _ — the Master of Time was gone, and Frostbite was left alone, standing among wreckage, a priceless treasure in his hands.

By the way the Infinite Realms measured time, it wasn't so long afterwards that seven ghosts plotted and dethroned and imprisoned Pariah Dark in his own lair.

Frostbite had no part in that.

He was busy maintaining the veneer of a subdued nation, busy rebuilding secretly beneath that veneer, busy keeping the Infi-map hidden under that rebuilding. The one upside of Pariah Dark's domain consuming the entire Ghost Zone was that he rarely looked anywhere twice, and Frostbite's concern was narrow: the Far Frozen, and the Infi-map. No more, no less.

So he'd been sculpting, when it happened. Armour of ectoplasm-reinforced ice, layered and linked. He refused to build weapons, because that might draw attention, but armour he could get away with, and working with ice calmed his hands and his mind until he could think clearly and remember what delight felt like.

And then the whole world shivered and took a gasping, desperate breath like no ghost had taken since they were alive, like the sigh of a star sent supernova. Frostbite felt himself scatter into particles and then rebuild whole, more whole than before, the everpresent heaviness of the Ghost King's rule and awareness vanished into something barely-there.

In the days following, there was celebration, tentative, tentative, tentative, _ glorious, _ as reality sunk in. Travelers traded stories for unbridled laughter, the Far Frozen manifested jagged peaks of ice from the hope in its people's cores. Snow stopped melting.

But even then, Pariah Dark was still King of All Ghosts. Asleep, and powerless, and without his Ring, he still retained his Crown and his right to rule, and the Infinite Realms still bore his mark.

The constant fighting was his, and the lingering fear that so many ghosts tried to deny, and the way raw ectoplasm left burns on the skin of the living and the dead alike. Frostbite, looking over his shoulder and entrusting only his closest friends with the secret of the Infi-map, fearing betrayal from the people he had stood with against what may as well have been the end of the world — that was his. 

Years, centuries, millennia passed, and the Far Frozen prospered, shone, became all over again a haven for ice cores, a place to learn and create and make an afterlife. Frostbite taught new-dead ghosts how to form ice into shape, laughed and led and sparred, comforted and mourned and rebuilt, but deep in the core of him, buried beneath the delight he’d taught himself all over again how to feel, he could never quite bring himself to believe that they would ever be truly free. 

And then Pariah Dark woke up.

It felt like being flung across the room. It felt like losing his arm all over again, the flesh of it burning and melting and curdling as he screamed. It felt like a fishhook in his core pulling him to Pariah's Keep, like iron around his mind, like dying, like despair.

Frostbite dug his hands into the sturdy make of a five-hundred-year-old table, trembling, and tried not to be sick.

He had thought— 

He had thought. He had thought that though they would never be free, they would at least— 

At least be free of _ that. _

He had forgotten the weight of it.

The whole Zone would have felt the Ghost King's reawakening. Many of them would run to that new portal the travelers were all talking about; many more would not. Frostbite could use the Infi-map, flee somewhere, run and run until the world stopped being a nightmare, but.

But.

He had a duty to the Far Frozen, and a promise to keep to the Master of Time. Even if he could get all his people out, he still had a duty to their collective lair. And they wouldn't leave anyways, not their home, their afterlife's work, not the shining mountains and frozen streams and gentle snow.

_ He will not suspect a defeated enemy. _

Frostbite hoped desperately that Pariah Dark only remembered the Far Frozen as a footnote in his conquests.

So, deliberately, he steadied himself, pulled himself together, pulled the sear of his core back inwards, and went to comfort his people. It was a day of holding hands, of fear, of plan-making, contingencies and contingencies until nobody could think at all. Multiple times, ghosts Frostbite had lead or taught or existed beside came to him personally and vowed to never abandon their people and their home, and every time Frostbite was left renewing his own dedication to the Far Frozen, awash in guilt for his first impulse to run.

And as many times as he could get away with without looking suspicious, he checked on the Infi-map, just in case. It was an old habit, a nervous habit, a habit he justified by reminding himself of his promise to the Master of Time. It was also completely pointless.

The Infi-map was guarded by a rotation of his best warriors, was a well-kept secret, and most importantly had never been gone all the thousands of times he'd already gone to check on it. To absolutely nobody's surprise, it also wasn't gone this time.

He exchanged a wry sort of smile with the Infi-map's guard — Midwinter, dutiful and stalwart. Clasped her arm, left her to her losing game of solitaire. Made his winding way out of the most secure place in the Far Frozen, to be among his people.

And then, like dawn, like cold crisp clear air, Pariah Dark's presence disappeared from the world. 

Gravity lightened. The temperature dropped. Frostbite tripped and fell and stayed there, lightheaded.

The Infinite Realms remade itself.

Frostbite was one of the only ghosts in the Far Frozen old enough to remember the last time someone had succeeded the Ghost King's throne.

Snow fell. Light, all-encompassing.

Faintly, so faintly, in the snow, in the air, in the ectoplasm that was the world's substance, in the ice under his face, in the chill of his core, Frostbite could feel the new King's presence. It was a fainter touch than Pariah Dark's had been, even imprisoned and asleep — Frostbite had to strain to even get a sense of it — but there was a cool softness where Pariah Dark had been all oppressive heat, all the tang of metal, all the hiss of spilled ectoplasm.

The new King was— Frostbite had no idea who the new King was, but their personality was written for anyone who knew to look in the fabric of the Zone, protectiveness and terror and love until Frostbite could almost imagine their smile.

He considered getting up. His people were probably worried about him, and probably confused about the succession. He would be needed to explain things. To do what they trusted him to do, as their leader. But the weight of what he had just witnessed held him pinned to the ground, helpless as when Pariah Dark had Commanded him to bow.

The _ succession. _

There was a new Ghost King.

Someone, some ghost, some undeniable soul had done the impossible, the inconceivable. Had challenged the Ghost King, and won. Had set them all free.

The Ghost Zone had a new King.

Whoever it was had not claimed the Ring and Crown, or the whole Zone would be _ blazing _with their presence, not whispering it. Whoever it was, who had defeated Pariah Dark. Whoever it was, who had tamped out the imagined fire eating away at the ice of Frostbite's arm, who had pulled the fishhook from his core and the heaviness from the air. Whoever it was.

Whoever it was, Frostbite and the Far Frozen owed them an almost unimaginable debt. Every ghost did.

It was snowing. Someone was tapping Frostbite on the shoulder, brushing snowflakes off his back with a haphazard hand. He turned his head and squinted to see Permafrost frowning in concern, and then, at Frostbite's glance, shaking his head, exasperated. Right. The world had just changed, and Frostbite was lying on the ground instead of doing his duty.

There was a new Ghost King.

_ May your reign be long and prosperous, Great One, _ Frostbite whispered, to the ice and the snow and the ectoplasm and the King. _ May you come to the Far Frozen in peace, so that we may receive you in joy and devotion. _

And then he stood, and brushed the snow off the rest of him, and went with ice in his core and hope in his step to lead his people.

**Author's Note:**

> boy i have HEADCANONS. slams my hands down. theyre good headcanons too, and only some of them made it into this. fisher kings!!!!!!!


End file.
